Tasting Him
by Jennistar1
Summary: What really happened with the old blind woman in the third episode. Who was really talking? Dark stuff.


**Title:** Tasting Him

**Author:** starjenni

**Disclaimer: **Not mine!

**Warnings: **Moriarty being twisted. 'Nuf said.

**Rating:** T

**Spoilers: SPOILERS FOR THE LAST EPISODE. **

**Summary:** What really happened with the blind woman in the last episode. _Who was really speaking there?_

* * *

He finds the blind woman in a scummy little flat in the middle of nowhere, and it is almost laughably easy to strap her up in bombs (_not that _he _does it of course, of course not, he doesn't actually _do _the dirty work, that would be stupid, when there are so many obedient money-grabbing immoral idiots out there to do it for him_) and talk into her ear.

He loves his voice. He can do anything with his voice, he can be anyone with that voice, like Sherlock with his little disguises and his crocodile tears. He can shout at nothing, laugh at death, sing at destruction, be angry at peace, he can do everything wrong and it terrifies people when he does, and then he _adores _it.

He speaks kindly into the dying woman's ear when he puts the words in her mouth, softly, sweetly, because surely people like to be whispered to their death, he reasons. He would certainly prefer it. To go out to murmurs and honey-sweet tones, and after all she _is_ old and broken, he might as well be _nice_ to her, no need to make this _nasty_, she's only strapped to a bomb after all.

Really, he cannot understand why people think this is so awful. She's old, she's going to die soon anyway. This way is more _fun._ This way is more _exciting._ This way is not boring, it is fascinating. Why doesn't anyone else see that?

He watches Sherlock _dance._ It is wonderful, exciting, London twinkling and bending and curling around him, doing what _he _wants, because he is a part of it, he is London and London is him, they have the same soul, and London lights up when Sherlock dances and dances, because it can do nothing else.

He's not stupid. He knows Sherlock works out his little puzzle with Raoul quickly, very quickly, he watches the typed requests on the internet forums and smiles and strokes his fingers across them, sometimes he types the words out himself so that he can see how Sherlock's fingers moved across the keyboard. Anything to be closer to that wonderful, wonderful mind. He wants to sink his fingers deep into Sherlock's brain, into his head, to feel how it works, to feel his electricity, to _feel_ him.

Sherlock does not ring, though it is obvious he has worked it out. He is using the time to investigate Moriarty then. Moriarty is not happy. This is not meant to happen. Sherlock's little pet should be putting his foot down, telling him _no save the little old woman who will die anyway instead_ because that's what he's _there_ for, to stop Sherlock getting close to him, because he wants to sink his teeth into Sherlock and taste that great mind, but Sherlock cannot do the same to him, that is wrong, that is _infuriating_. He is going to take Sherlock apart. He cannot have Sherlock do the same to him.

Ah. _Ah._ But of course - Sherlock has distracted his pet. Given him a little something to run around with, a simple puzzle, a car for him to chase. He knows how to work him, of course he does, because that is the point of the pet, that it serves to amuse but it never gets the better of you, because that would be unnatural, that would be wrong, that would be frightening. Eventually his pet will complain at him for not putting the woman and her fear first, but it will be like shouting into the wind. So, so pointless. Sherlock will never learn to waste time on those beneath him. He is like Moriarty like that. He is _fantastic_ like that.

But it does make him angry, that Sherlock is doing this. He made the time deliberately long so that Sherlock would _have _this problem, so that the pet would speak up, so that a little piece of Sherlock that _is _human, the little pathetic scrap of good that he has which Moriarty does not, would show itself, would niggle and nibble at him. He wanted Sherlock to be _divided._ Because Moriarty is going to use this human part to destroy Sherlock, and he might as well start soon, it is going to take some effort.

But it doesn't _work._ Sherlock outsmarts him without even knowing it and that is _wrong wrong wrong _and yet it is so right, because of course Sherlock will do it, and of course Moriarty will simultaneously love and hate it. Oh he can feel him. Oh. He can so feel him.

He takes revenge in a new way. Sherlock can win his little puzzle, he can win this round, that's good, that's fine, that's what Moriarty _wants _him to do, but he doesn't necessarily have to win _everything._ And this might shock him a bit, rattle up that tiny piece of humanity a bit, Moriarty can but hope.

He sits by his microphone, and rings Sherlock.

"Help me," he says into the microphone, listening through his ear piece at the old woman croaking and crying her way around the words. Oh, this is wonderful. He could do this for eternity.

And it's beautiful, Sherlock's voice, _"Tell us where you are"_, the way he thinks he has won, that everything will be fine, that she will live. Moriarty wants to bottle it, it is so perfect. _"Tell us where you are."_ You'll find out, Sherlock. Soon, but in the wrong way.

"He was so," Moriarty says into the microphone, "His voice, he…"

And she _repeats _the words, she actually _repeats _them, the stupid, _stupid_ old woman, repeating him because she has been told to do so and she is just worthless enough a piece of flesh not to _think._

Sherlock is instantly trying to cut her off, panicking almost, and that is _glorious, _he is not in control, cannot be in control, not of this, and it is glorious, beautiful -

"He sounded so…soft," Moriarty says into the microphone.

She repeats the words.

He signals the snipers to fire.

They do, and everything goes dead.

He sits back.

One day, when Sherlock is lying at his feet in a broken-hearted, half-destroyed mess and the world is burning around them, he will tell him what he did. He will show him just how much he disliked Sherlock's attempts at getting to _know _him. He will tell Sherlock that it was his fault the old woman died, that he should have been moral quicker, sooner, because he would have saved more that way. He will break that human Sherlock just a little bit more before he _bites _and _savours _and then _kills _him. It will be delicious, it will all be quite delicious.

Moriarty can taste it even now.


End file.
